The present invention refers to an arrangement for milking of animals, including a number of milking stations, each milking station including a set of teatcups to be attached to the animal to be milked, a local milk-collecting unit, a milk discharge conduit and a feeding member; a central milk-receiving unit; and a transport conduit connecting each milk discharge conduit to the central milk-receiving unit for the transport of milk from each milking station to the central milk-receiving unit, said feeding member of each milking station being arranged to feed the milk from the local milk-collecting unit to the transport conduit via the milk discharge conduit. Furthermore, the invention refers to a method for milking of animals in a milking arrangement including a number of milking stations.
In big milking installations including a large number of milking stations, it is a difficult task to provide a proper transport of the milk to a common milk storage and cooling tank. The milk delivery conduits will be long and a complex equipment is needed at the common milk storage and cooling tank in order to obtain a proper cleaning of the milking arrangement.
It is known to use the vacuum of a milking plant for transporting the milk to a milk-receiving unit. However, transporting milk by vacuum makes it necessary to provide a transport conduit that is filled by milk or any other liquid, such as washing liquid. The vacuum transport will not function when the conduit is not full across its diameter. It is also known to draw the milk by vacuum from a number of milking stations to a common milk line. The milk line is sloping to permit further transport of the milk to a releaser jar by means of gravity.
EP-A-797 915 discloses a milking arrangement with a milk-collecting container and at least one intermediate milk container. The milk reaches the intermediate milk container by means of vacuum from the vacuum source of the arrangement. The milk is transported from the intermediate container to the milk-collecting container by means of a pressurised gas, but the document also points to the possibility of performing this transport by means of gravity. However, EP-A-797 915 does not appear to be directed to solve the problems of connecting a large number of independent milking stations to a common milk-collecting container.